Chapter Twelve

Waterloo Station bore all the markings of the battlefield from which it took its name when Holmes, Mycroft and I arrived there the following afternoon.

As luck would have it, Challenger’s train had arrived a little early and we needed no Arrivals Board to direct us to the relevant platform.

Platform 7 looked more like a rugger scrum than its usual orderly concourse of travellers and, as the crowd surged to and fro, I was reminded of the days when I used to play for Blackheath myself and would think nothing of piling into such a melée of bodies.

Then I saw that there was an eye to this storm. A furled umbrella was being raised and waved about in an agitated manner and a singular voice could be heard over the din of the train whistles and escaping steam.

“Idiots! Nincompoops! I’ll sue every last one of your editors. How dare you question the veracity of George Edward Challenger?”

Mycroft and Holmes exchanged glances and wry smiles.

“We appear to be in the right place,” said Holmes.

“It beggars belief to think there could be two of him,” Mycroft replied.

Before we left for the station I had studied the entry for this clearly unrepentant Sinner in Holmes’s Index. It read—

CHALLENGER, PROF. GEORGE EDWARD

Educated at Largs Academy, Edinburgh; Edinburgh Univ. followed by post-graduate course at Christ Church College, Oxford … winner of Crayston Medal for Zoological Research … holder of various prestigious offices in departments of anthropology, from all of which he either resigned or was fired in acrimonious fashion … endless other academic awards and learned publications—“Some Observations Upon a Series of Kaimuck Skulls”; “Outlines of Vertebrate Evolution”, etc., etc., Recreations: Walking, Alpine climbing. -Address: Enmore Park, Kensington, W.

To which Holmes had added a handwritten note to the effect that Challenger must hold some sort of record in terms of police court fines for assaulting members of the Press who asked him questions he found offensive.

“Ah, well,” Mycroft sighed, “I suppose we’d better bale George out one more time or Staunton will find him by the sheer decibel level alone.”

With Mycroft’s bulk as the point of it, the three of us formed a human wedge and forced our way through the crowd.

At the heart of it stood three bewildered porters, their trolleys piled high with Challenger’s assorted crates and portmanteaux, and a ring of journalists, all of them keeping a wary distance—except for one who was on his hands and knees striving to find the pieces of his broken camera. Standing over him, his umbrella poised like the sword of Damocles, stood Professor Challenger.

The first thing that struck me about the man was the contrast between his imposing presence and his physical size. Listening to his bull-like roar from a distance, I had deduced that he must be huge but now I saw that he was a foreshortened Hercules, for he stood well below my height, and I am not a tall man.

But what he lacked in height, he more than compensated for in breadth and, presumably, brain. The spread of his shoulders taxed the limits of his jacket, as did the barrel of a chest.

The head was perhaps the largest I have ever seen on a man and again I was reminded of a bull, for he had the face and beard I have only ever seen in pictures of Assyrian bulls. His complexion was florid—I might say, choleric—and the beard, which was spade-shaped and extended well down his massive chest, was so jet black that, when it caught the light, it almost seemed to have hints of blue in it.

The brow was equally impressive from what I could see of it under his panama hat. They eyes—when they had ceased to flash fire—would be blue-grey under those beetling black brows and would miss nothing and trust no one.

Finally, there were the hands. Large enough to rival a navvy’s and covered with long black hair, they gripped the umbrella with unequivocal menace.

All in all, Professor George Edward Challenger looked more like one of the primates he had undoubtedly been studying in the back of beyond than one of the most highly qualified academics of his generation.

“We seem to be in the right place,” said Holmes.

“I hardly think there can be two of them,” Mycroft replied

And this was the man we were counting on to resolve our dilemma!

If he was surprised to see Mycroft, he showed no sign of it, merely observing—

“Ah, Her Majesty’s Government have sent you to welcome me home, have they, Holmes? Perfectly appropriate, too. And who are these people? Minor civil servants of some sort, I suppose. Perhaps they can take care of the luggage?”

Introductions were duly effected, though there was a saurian glint deep in Challenger’s eye that told me he knew perfectly well who we were.

“Consulting detective, eh? What sort of job is that, pray? Sounds more like some quack who overcharges you for telling you you’ve got a headache you told him about in the first place. And you, Mycroft. Always thought you could have added up to something more than a glorified office boy, if only you could have been bothered to stir your stumps.”

With that last he went too far. For the next two minutes the voluble Professor was rendered mute, as Mycroft—giving us a rare glimpse of what made him central to affairs of state—told him, in a tone that brooked no interruption, what had happened in his absence and why we were here.

“And so, my dear George, you would do us all a great favour if you would, for one brief and shining hour, set aside your natural tendency towards the theatrical and come with us.”

Although he had come in like the proverbial lion, Challenger allowed himself to be led out like a veritable lamb. There was the quality of the basilisk in Mycroft’s expression that said enough was enough.

Even the Professor’s admonishments to the porters attempting to maneouvre his luggage on to their trolleys was positively mild for him—

“I hope you realise you are not delivering coal but handing unique artefacts that will revolutionise all our present theories of evolution!”

Our little party reached the station entrance, where, I was amused to see, Mycroft had once again had his cab wait upon him. Seeing my quizzical expression, his face for the briefest of moments transformed itself into a creditable impersonation of Oscar Wilde and then returned to its normal enigmatic expression.

“My dear Doctor, I have long since learned that a good idea does not mind who has it—or, indeed, how often.”

Now Holmes was whistling up another cab and directing the winded porters to pile Challenger’s luggage into it. As he watched them at work, the Professor asked in a dangerously mild tone—

“Since I am obviously to be kidnapped, am I allowed to enquire where you are taking me?”

Then, with a glance at Mycroft—“Is it the Tower of London for my heretical views on the origin of species? Or for calling the President of the Zoological Society an underdeveloped primate in print? Pray tell.”

By way of answer Holmes instructed the driver of the lead cab—

“Enmore Gardens, Kensington, driver. We are taking you home, Professor Challenger. You see, we want to borrow a book.”

The room was exactly what one might have expected if a stage designer had set out to create the study of an eccentric professor for a West End play. Books and papers were piled on every available surface and in several cases had begun to cascade on to the somewhat threadbare carpet. Shelves were littered with strange fragments of bones and other, less savoury objects which defied immediate identification. The walls were crowded with a variety of framed diplomas and certificates attesting to the Professor’s pre-eminence in this field or that and a virtual gallery of photographs in which Challenger, invariably centre stage, adopted the identical self-satisfied pose.

The light from the large bay window illuminated the myriad dust motes that hung in the air and every time an object was moved, a myriad more rose to join them. It was clear that Mrs. Challenger and her maid were forbidden to disturb this holy of holies on pain of death, although the rest of the house that we had seen as we entered shone like a new pin and it was quite apparent where his domain ended and hers began.

“My dear wife is always telling me that this or that terrible catastrophe is about to engulf me ‘for my sins’, but I doubt that even she—the romantic that she is—could have envisaged such poetic justice.”

Challenger stroked his great beard thoughtfully and his eyes looked over our heads, as Holmes—with occasional interpolations from Mycroft—gave him a detailed account of the events of the last few days.

“Well, Holmes …” Then he paused thoughtfully. “The fact of there now being two of you called Holmes forces me to change the habit of a lifetime and call you ‘Mycroft’. I have always deplored this modern habit of over-familiarity, but I suppose needs must. This man Staunton has much to answer for.”

Then the old Challenger returned momentarily.

“Did I not warn the rest of you at the time I was foolish enough to indulge in that undergraduate nonsense that the man was a charlatan and a poseur? But would you listen? Not one of you!”

He banged on the table in his shabby sitting room in annoyance, causing several objects to fall to the floor. The noise caused the door to open and his wife—a diminutive but fierce little woman—to put her head around it and fix him with a lion-tamer’s glare.

“George!”

“Yes, my dear,” he replied meekly and the door closed again behind her.

“Gentlemen,” he went on in a nearly normal tone, “I seem to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Here you have been having all the excitement, while I have been incarcerated in the wilds with that fool Summerlee, questioning my every move. Naturally, I validated my theories in short order and headed for home. But—can you credit it?—Summerlee refused to join me and insists on retracing every step of our journey to find the mistake he is convinced I made. Pah!”

He paused and a wistful expression crossed his face.

“Nonetheless, I must confess that I rather wish he were here now. It would give me such pleasure to see Envy written across those dessicated features of his when he realised that I, George Edward Challenger was able in an instant to solve a problem that had beaten the combined and—perhaps one might surmise—possibly over-vaunted intellects of the brothers Holmes.”

“Perhaps you would care to elucidate, Challenger—or may I call you ‘George’?” Mycroft enquired with dangerous calm.

“I’d prefer Challenger, if you don’t mind,” the Professor replied totally missing the irony. He was now in full spate.

“Frankly, gentlemen, what is so special about this business of deduction? What else do you think scientists like myself do in our daily work? Come, Mr. Holmes, let me put you to the test. What, sitting here, can you tell about me?”

I felt my irritation towards the man begin to abate and I smiled inwardly. Little did he know the trap he had just sprung for himself.

My friend pursed his lips and said mildly—

“I dare say you are quite right, Professor. Having only just met you, I can tell very little about you, other than the fact that you have recently started to become vain about your personal appearance, dressed this morning in rather a hurry, were in the habit of smoking a cheroot made of Turkish tobacco in a distinctly unorthodox fashion but have recently given up the habit—presumably at your wife’s insistence. Oh, and you had a small dog of which you were inordinately fond but which died while you were abroad. Other than that—and what may be gleaned from reading your newspaper cuttings, I know—as you rightly say—nothing about you.”

I was pleased to note that Challenger now wore that familiar glazed expression that was a hallmark of Holmes’s subjects.

“Pardon me,” said Holmes, leaning across the Professor’s desk and gently removing a hair from the arm of his jacket. “The dog was a Jack Russell terrier.”

There was a moment’s silence and then Holmes put the man out of his misery.

“I am always telling Watson that I shall sink whatever reputation I possess by explaining my little parlour tricks but on this occasion I can see that it is necessary …

“Your personal appearance presents no problem. You have naturally strong hair that goes its own way but recently you have detected a bald spot on the crown and attempted to brush your hair over it. It has, however, resisted your best, if intermittent, efforts and thus draws attention to what you wish to conceal.

“This morning you dressed on the ship and—without your wife to check your appearance before you appeared in public—you put on odd socks. I noticed them at the station and since you are not a man to make a deliberately outré fashion statement …

“When we entered your house a few minutes ago, your wife studied your right hand most carefully—presumably to see if the stains on the fingers that distinguish an inveterate smoker were in fresh evidence, thus proving that, in absentio you had broken your promise.

“I use the word ‘unorthodox’ because, while most of us hold a cigarette or cigar between the index and second fingers, the stains indicate that you are accustomed to hold it between the second and third fingers.

“‘Turkish’? Watson will tell you that I have learned to distinguish between the ashes of some one hundred and forty different tobaccos—I have even written a small monograph on the subject.

“This …”—and he picked up a pinch of cold ash from an ashtray on the desk—“though some months old is clearly of Turkish origin.” He dropped it back where he found it. “A man remains true to his smoking habits. I see no reason to suppose you have changed yours.

“The dog? Here I fear I tread on sensitive ground. I perceive that you and Mrs. Challenger are a childless couple. Yet you, Professor, are proud of your family heritage and equally proud of your own accomplishments …”—and he indicated the gallery of framed photographs with a sweep of his hand. “It is, therefore, inconceivable that you would not include a picture of yourself as proud parents. You do, however, have a record of yourselves with a series of small dogs …” And here he reached out and turned around a cabinet photograph of the Challengers holding a dachshund that had been facing the Professor, so that we could all see it.

“When a pet dog and its owner form a bond and the owner is indulgent, as you are, it is not uncommon for the dog to insist on sitting on its master’s lap when he is working at his desk. The hair in the cradle of your arm tells its own story. Sadly, the fact that the dog was not there to greet you on your arrival—and the look that passed between you and your wife—tells another.

“I rest my case.”

There was a moment’s silence before a subdued Challenger said—

“Mr. Holmes, I hope G.E.C. is a big enough man to apologise. You fully deserve your reputation.”

He stretched his powerful right hand across the desk. Solemnly Holmes shook it.

“And now,” said Challenger, “allow me to make my small but not insignificant contribution to this bizarre tale.

“When we embarked upon that ridiculous Sinners charade and somebody—I seem to remember it was Pelham—said that every halfway respectable society had to have a mystical Book of Rules, I suddenly remembered a whole pile of junk my father had accumulated from his travels. He was, as you may know, a distinguished explorer and scientist in his own right with a reputation not far below my own present one.

“Since he was out of the country at the time, I had no trouble in finding something suitable looking. I had not the faintest idea what it was. A Sanskrit inscription, of course, but that particular field of study has never attracted me and still does not. The others seemed to find it acceptable but then little things please little minds …”

“But what happened to it when the Society disbanded?” Holmes asked. Even he, I noticed, was comparatively subdued in Challenger’s emotional presence. The man’s life force was such that he seemed to suck the air from the room around him. I have never experienced anything quite like it.

“Oh, I put it back with my father’s other paraphernalia. He never even noticed it was gone.”

“And where is that paraphernalia now?” Mycroft asked urgently.

Challenger looked at him as if he were a dense pupil at one of his lectures.

“Where it belongs, obviously. In the British Museum. The Rare Manuscripts Department. I placed all of his papers there immediately after his death.”

“But—” I looked helplessly at Holmes but he gave me a sign to let Challenger continue uninterrupted.

“I have, of course, given those incompetent bureaucrats strict instructions that the Challenger Collection should remain inviolate until I have time to collate it personally—which looks increasingly unlikely—or until after my own death. At which time I have suggested that a complete suite of rooms be dedicated to our memory and achievements. ‘The Challenger Annexe’ would be perfectly appropriate.”

“So the blessed book was under our noses all the time, Holmes?” I could not help but interject.

“So it would seem, old fellow.”

And then he explained the whole episode to the Professor, which amused him immensely. The beard rose and fell on the massive chest as he laughed. “Who is acting like the schoolboy now?” I thought.

“So now the Great God Kor has two books to his name?” he gasped when he had contained his amusement. “And what do you propose to do now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”

“I propose to offer one of them to Mr. Geoffrey Staunton—the ‘New Testament’ to be precise.”

There was a stunned silence in the room after Holmes had spoken.

“You mean that after all we have gone through, you intend to let the fellow win, Holmes?”

“Not at all, Watson. Merely that we use our ‘Book’ to entice the rat from his lair. At this very moment he is lurking there, licking his wounds, desperate to revenge himself for what he undoubtedly sees as his humiliation at our hands.

“We must also assume that he now knows that Challenger here has returned. Therefore, left to his own devices, he will make the Professor his next target …”

Once more the chest was puffed out and the eyes glared fire. This time I was put in mind of an angry pouter pigeon.

“If George Edward Challenger cannot defend himself against a little pipsqueak like Staunton, then …”

Holmes ignored the interruption.

“However, before he has the opportunity to do so, we shall make him our target, using the Professor as our bait …”

“Bait!” roared that worthy.

“Believe me, Professor, it is a role which will require both courage and unusual subtlety.”

“Then I am your man,” replied the Professor, somewhat mollified.

“I imagine that financing one of your expeditions must be a tedious and time-consuming business?” Holmes asked in an apparent non sequitur.

“Why, yes, tedious in the extreme. But what …?”

“Tomorrow’s papers will contain an announcement that you are to hold an auction of a number of your personal and professional effects to raise money for your forthcoming expedition to—where shall we say?”

Now the Professor’s eyes really did light up with an almost religious fervour.

“What an excellent idea, Mr. Holmes. I have no doubt that a grateful public would be prepared to pay substantial amounts of money for the most trivial of my surplus items—what my dear wife likes to refer to as ‘my old rubbish’. And now that you mention it, I have long had it in mind to pursue the persistent rumours that have come to my ears of a strange plateau that exists deep in the Brazilian rain forests. The stories refer to it as a ‘lost world’. Who knows what rare life forms may linger there. Why …”

I caught Holmes’s eye. No wonder this man’s fevered imagination got him into so much controversy. A lost world, indeed! He had been reading too much of that Jules Verne fellow.

“Splendid,” said Holmes, as he got up, rubbing his bony hands in satisfaction. “If you will make a list of the items for sale—it scarcely matters what—I will arrange for the auction to take place in the main lounge of the Savoy Hotel two days from now and place an announcement accordingly. I shall also have a personal invitation hand delivered to Mr. Geoffrey Staunton, care of the Zakhistan Consulate, telling him that he will find something to his advantage, should he choose to attend. If I understand his psychology adequately, even though he scents danger, he will be unable to refuse. He will see it as his chance to redeem himself.”

“And now, Professor, we will leave you to your unpacking.”

As we left, we could hear the piping treble and the booming base notes; the Challengers picking up their perpetual duet of harmonious disagreement.

“What do you make of the fellow, Holmes?”

“I am inclined to the view that, if anyone can find a lost world, he can …”